It’s never coming back.

I know that now.

Still, it’s so difficult to accept.

The neighborhood pick-up baseball game is dead. Gone. Never to return.

Youth baseball fields are so well-manicured today. They are practically immaculate. And they all have something in common.

In the middle of a beautiful late spring or warm summer day, they’re empty.

Every time I drive by one of them, I cringe. It’s like part of a kid being a kid has been taken away forever.

The only times you see kids playing baseball on one of these fields now is if they’re in full uniform, with coaches, umpires and parents milling about.

Adelman Field in Butler Township is gated up when there’s no official game going on. A sign there says the field is open only to organized league activity.

That stings.

No more kids riding their bikes to the ballfield, glove on the handlebars.

No more team captains putting hand over hand on a bat handle to determine who gets to pick his player first.

No more going over makeshift rules, depending upon how many kids showed up to play that day.

Not enough players to have a first baseman? Play “pitcher’s hand.” If a ground ball is fielded and thrown to the pitcher before you reach first base, you’re out.

Sure, there’s a lot of close calls. Yet no umpire is needed. Kids know whether they’re out or safe. In the case of an argument, majority rules.

No right fielder? Hit the ball to right, you’re out. No infielders on the right side? Hit a grounder there, you’re out.

If there’s a creek somewhere in foul territory (there was at our field), hit the ball in there and you’re out. You rarely played with a new baseball and you couldn’t afford to get the few baseballs you did have get water-logged.

No one called balls and strikes. No kid wanted to umpire. All kids wanted to play.

When the batter got a hittable pitch, he swung. Nobody — fielders or hitters — wanted to stand around all day.

Pick-up games were baseball for the pure fun of it. Teams were picked evenly and games were close.

There was no parental pressure, no coaching tips, no scholarship at stake.

Broken bat? Hammer a couple of nails in it, good as new. (Yes, we used wooden bats).

Somebody’s old shirt may have served as first base. A rock could have been second base. A smashed-up box might have been third base.

Nobody cared.

Head home to have lunch, come back out to the field until dinner time. It was heaven.

It was kids being kids — together.

I guess kids are together today ... through text messages, Facebook, video games, whatever.

Ah, well.

I suppose you never know what you’re missing if you’ve never had it.

John Enrietto is sports editor of the Butler Eagle